Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner (3 page)

Billy studied the man for a long moment. Then he nodded his head. "That sounds good," he said. "How long will it take?"

"By the time you're back tomorrow to pay for the T&A sets I should know something. Meanwhile, step
very
quietly."

"As quietly as I can," Billy said. "Doc's got these cases tonight, and I think something lined up for Thursday. I'll be back in the meantime." He stood up to leave. "How soon can we get those T&A packs?"

"They'll be in the locker within two hours," Parrot said. "The truck's about to go out now. You've got the key. Put the used packs back in the locker, and bring me the key again tomorrow along with the money. Three-fifty in markers, or five hundred in credit. Either way." The fat man paused. "Do you know where Doc's case is tonight?"

"Trenton Sector, I think. Why?"

"I've got another call for him." Parrot opened a card case, handed an address card to Billy. "This just came in a few minutes ago. I thought of Doc because it's near his Hospital."

Billy ■ frowned. "Doc isn't looking for more business right now, he's got more than he can handle as it is."

"I'd like your Doc to see this one just the same. It's an emergency, a very sick kid. Headache, high fever, stiff neck—just like a number that have been turning up lately, with some of them dying. Ask him to make it if he possibly can."

"Well, I'll ask him," Billy said. "Maybe when he's finished with these tonsils—"

"Good," Parrot said. "See you tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll get to snooping some myself."

Most of the lights were out in the antique shop above as Billy passed through, but the aged woman was waiting to lock up behind him. Out on the cold street he hesitated, then turned in the direction of his flat. He was thinking of food, a change of clothes and preparations for the night's work, and he did not notice the cream-colored ground-cab that whispered past him on the street and turned onto the main Lower City thoroughfare ahead.

III

It was well past 9:00 in the evening when Billy Gimp stepped down from the monorail two blocks from the Health Control Hospital No. 7 and made his way on foot through the thinning Upper City crowds toward the cavernous hospital entrance. Back in his room he had found that the bug was still there, and decided against spending any more time there than was necessary. After a quick shower and change of clothes he checked to be sure he had Parrot's locker key in his pocket. Then he headed for a nearby Lower City bar and grill for dinner.

Two other bladerunners were just leaving as he reached the place, and they paused to talk a moment, but neither of them had been bothered with bugs and neither of them was aware of any special increase in Health Control alertness. Once inside with a hamburger and French fries in front of him, Billy turned his conversation with Parrot over and over in his mind as he ate.

There was no reason to doubt what Parrot and Phil Hawk had told him—yet the information made no sense to Billy. If more and more bladerunners were being bugged for some reason, then why were there not more arrests? The Health Control laws, passed almost twenty years before, were perfectly explicit. All forms of legal health care were provided in the government-operated Hospitals, Emergency Rooms and Outpatient Clinics, and only those patients who could qualify under the Eugenics Control laws were eligible for health care at all. The whole vast underworld of black-market medicine, of which bladerunners like Billy were such an integral part, had grown up in the wake of those Eugenics Control laws, bringing totally illegal health care services to the multitudes of people who could not—or would not —qualify for health care on a legal basis. Hardly a doctor could be named who had not taken a hand in underground medicine at one time or another, despite the watchful eye of Health Control police and the heavy penalties that could be levied when a physician or a bladerunner was caught and convicted—yet Health Control, to date, had been able to curb only a small fraction of the total amount of illegal medical practice. There were occasional arrests, widely publicized in the press and on TV, and even occasional convictions, but the Secretary of Health Control himself made no pretense that the practice of illegal medicine was declining.

Considering all this, it was not surprising that Health Control police might be engaged in an increasing pattern of screening sweeps in search of new evidence of illicit medical activities. Nor was there any better way of gathering such evidence than by bugging bladerunners. No one was more deeply involved in all the illegal aspects of underground medicine; indeed, without bladerunners the whole intricate system of illicit medical practice would fall apart at the seams. The Health Control snoopers knew perfectly well that a bladerunner caught and hung with a transponder, so that he was continuously spied upon, was a bladerunner—and a doctor—out of the business of underground medicine, at least for a while. But if arrests were not being made, what was the purpose of the increasing surveillance?

It made no sense to Billy, and he finished his meal in a gloom of depression. He could not throw off the premonition that there was more to his own bugging than met the eye, that dangerous trouble was somehow impending. Yet he stubbornly refused to allow it to worry him into immobility. It was, after all, as much Doc's worry as it was his, and Doc had a case tonight and required Billy's help. Maybe he would have some idea what had brought the bug about, or what Billy might do about it. At any rate, until he saw Doc, his evening's work was cut out for him. Checking the time, he paid his bill with a legitimate credit card and stepped out on the street to hail a ground-cab.

The procedure he followed was so familiar that he could have done it in his sleep. At his direction the ground-cab found a nearby Lower City arterial and began working its way up ramps and viaducts into the heavy Upper City traffic. Catching a north-south freeway, the cab sped northward to a Center City heli-cab station, as Billy kept a watchful eye out the back window. Satisfied that he had not been followed, he paid off the cabbie at the passenger loading ramp of the station and made his way back to the banks of twenty-four-hour baggage lockers. Here he inserted Parrot's key unhesitatingly into a locker near the floor and drew out the small blue flight bag he found inside. He did not know precisely how Parrot got the surgical packs transported from his shop to the baggage lockers, and he did not care to know; Parrot never failed to provide them on time by this indirect means, nor had he ever failed to pick up the used instruments Billy would leave there when the surgery was over. This was the way Parrot chose to work, and the less detail he knew about it, Billy thought, the better. With the flight bag securely under his arm he had walked outside the station, crossed the freeway on a pedestrian ramp and caught a southbound monorail for downtown and Hospital No. 7.

It was getting late, and he had been moving briskly, but now, half a block from the Hospital entrance, he slowed up and peered ahead. The sidewalk and street in front of the Hospital were filled with a milling throng of people, and a block away Billy could hear the shouted slogans and sing-song chants of a demonstration going on. Several dozen people were crowding the street and blocking traffic, their heads and beards half shaved, placards waving, long flowing robes sweeping the ground. Some of the demonstrators were stopping passersby, handing out literature and calling attention to their placards. DESTROY THE CLINICS!!! one sign said in vivid orange letters. DOWN WITH HEALTH CONTROL! another implored. TRUST NATURE, NOT DOCTORS. As Billy approached, a wild-eyed man in a ground-length robe bore down on him, thrusting a wad of printed sheets into his hand. "No medicine is good medicine, brother!" the man shouted. "Boycott the doctors
now!"

At the Hospital entrance a handful of Health Control guards stood by with tear-gas guns at ready, keeping the crowd of demonstrators out of the Hospital doorway by main force and watching for any disruption that might spark violence. Billy ducked past one of the guards and walked into the main lobby of the Hospital building. It was a huge concourse, with admission offices to one side and several banks of elevators to the Hospital inpatient rooms and outpatient clinics against a far wall. Most of the lobby, however, was filled with chairs and benches, as droves of potential patients stolidly waited their turn at the authentication desks. Occasionally white-coated doctors or nurses with tip-tilted caps passed through; an elevator opened to discharge a man in a wheelchair into the lobby, followed by an attendant. Billy crossed the lobby to an alcove where magazines and books were for sale and began leafing through a paperback as he kept his eyes on the bank of elevators.

As usual, he was early, and as usual, he saw three or four other bladerunners enter the the lobby, taking seats or stopping at one of the shopping stalls. They saw him, but by common code there was no acknowledgment other than the slightest narrowing of eyes or lowering of eyelids. Certainly it appeared that the screening sweeps were not interfering much with business, yet Billy felt himself growing more and more nervous as he waited. Then, with a sigh of relief he saw a tall, gray-haired man step from the elevator with a crowd of people and make his way across the lobby toward the door. As the man passed the magazine stand Billy fell in a few discreet paces behind him.

At the door Doc stopped and frowned at the still-growing crowd of demonstrators. As he pushed past the guards, a large man with a fearsome half-shaved beard and dark, angry eyes suddenly moved into his path. "Here's a doctor!" the man shouted. "Walking out with his bloody hands! I've seen
him
here before—"

Others near the man turned and began converging on Doc. A middle-aged woman with a placard thrust her face up into Doc's. "Going on an errand of mercy tonight, Doctor?" she screamed. "Or do you just do your dirty work for the government?" Doc tried to push his way past the woman, but the big man moved to box him in, forcing him to a standstill.

"How does it feel to have blood on your hands, Doctor?" the man shouted. "What work have you been doing today in that Palace of Blood and Death? No, don't try to run away, these people here want answers!"

Billy moved, shouldering through the crowd of placard-wavers. At the same time a blue-uniformed Health Control guard pushed his way up to Doc's side, night stick at ready. "All right, that's enough!" the guard

shouted. "Move on, you people, out of the way there!"

The man with the half beard turned his attention from Doc to the guard, and a long curving knife appeared from beneath his robe. Doc turned aside, pushing away through the crowd. His eyes caught Billy's, and Billy fell in ahead of him, running interference with surprising agility. A scream went up behind them as a ground-cab inched past. Billy whistled it down, then stepped aside as Doc opened the door and plunged in. The door slammed and the cab moved off as Billy turned his attention to the street again, still clutching the blue flight bag under his arm. Somewhere in the distance a siren was howling now, and a police copter appeared from the north and came down to hover over the demonstration that was fast turning into a riot. Billy turned and ran in the opposite direction, away from the growing crowd. A block away he came to a thoroughfare and finally flagged down a passing ground-cab. He gave a nearby address and then settled back*with a sigh. That had been close, altogether too close. He had seen plenty of Naturist demonstrations before, but never one quite so close to violence. And with Doc caught right in the middle, it could have turned into a disaster.

Ten minutes later the cab drew up to a corner coffee shop. Billy paid his fare, and walked inside. To the rear, in a booth, he spotted Doc and went to join him. Doc still looked shaken. "Boy, I was glad to see
you,"
he said.

"That was an ugly crowd," Billy breathed.

"They're getting worse every day, but that was the first time they ever nailed me as a doctor."

"Yes, how did that happen?"

"I don't know. Probably just chance; I'm coming out there about the same time every night. Or maybe they're beginning to single out individual doctors to harass. There's no telling what the Naturists will do next. Some of their people are real fanatics."

"You're telling me! That big guy had a knife."

"A lot of them do. They say it's part of their religion to go armed, and I guess it's legal as long as they keep them out of sight"

"Religion!" Billy said scornfully. "How can they call themselves a religion?"

Doc sighed. "I don't know," he said. "Some of them are just rabble-rousers, but others are in real earnest. They claim that medical care is thwarting the will of God, working against nature, and they want all health care completely banned, whether people qualify for it under the Eugenics Laws or not. Above all, they want the qualification provisions thrown out."

"You mean the mandatory sterilization requirements?"

"Exactly. And that's where they get a lot of their support. Lots more people than just the Naturists are balking at the sterilization laws these days." Doc smiled wearily. "As we well know. You all set for tonight?"

Billy pointed to the bulging flight bag. "I got everything Molly told me to. Where is she, by the way?"

"She was called back on duty for a late case, a gall bladder or something. They were just closing up when I left, so she'll be along pretty soon. Meanwhile, I'm starved."

Doc picked up a menu card, punched it for a steak and coffee and dropped it down the slot. Two minutes later he opened the service unit to take out the freshly delivered order. For a few moments he ate in silence. Then he said, "Okay, now tell me about this bug."